“I know you were.” The admission hurt her: he recognized that frown now.
“I can try to hold them off if you want to make a run for the tree line?”
She shook her head. “I won’t make it very far and we both know it.”
The jingle of the harness and the shuffle of the horses’ hooves signalled they could go no farther. The carriage creaked as Willie fought to control the beasts; fear was all around them now. James didn’t even bother reaching for a pistol. The sound of hooves bearing down and the shouts of men meant they were outnumbered. Perhaps he could bargain for Daniella’s life? She wouldn’t make it home unscathed but she would make it home. She was resourceful and resilient. Two things he reluctantly admired most about her.
A booming voice drifted along the road. “Come on out of the carriage and show yourselves. You’re outnumbered and outplayed.”
Outplayed? Odd.
Daniella caught the inference as well and sat up from her position on the floor.
James raised his brow but she only shook her head.
He lifted the glass pane in the door and called back, “I’ll first be needing your word I’ll get a chance to speak to your leader before you put a ball in me.”
Murmurs followed and then, “You aren’t really in a bargaining place right now, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
James would have chuckled had the circumstances been different. “I’ll kill the lady myself before I let you get your grubby hands on her.”
“No need for that, Lasterton. We need the girl in one piece.”
They knew who he was? Bloody pirates. “Will you be taking her back to her father then?” he asked.
“Eventually.”
That answer was not good enough. “Do you recognize the voice, Daniella?”
She was thinking about it. Hard. “I’m not sure. I think I do but it’s been an age since I last saw him. I thought he was dead. I say we get out.”
“No.”
She breathed deep and looked him squarely in the eye. “I know you think you have the upper hand but do you not think when it comes to pirates I might know more than you? Please, James, this is not your battlefield and these men do not fight with honour or with pride. You don’t speak their language and will probably get us all killed.”
As if the men outside had heard her whispered words the one doing the talking called again: “Your men aren’t comfortable at the point of my swords, Lasterton, and I can’t guarantee there won’t be blood spilled if we don’t hurry this along. The tide is going out and so should we be.”
Dammit. Of course they had Hobson and Patrick as well. Unlatching the door, James stepped slowly from the carriage to stand on the side of the muddy road. There had to be at least two dozen tan-skinned, toothless, filthy ruffians surrounding a paler man atop a fine—probably stolen—horse. He wore dark leather breeches and boots and the brightest crimson silk waistcoat James had ever seen. No shirt, no necktie or cravat.
Despite their shaggy appearances, the pirates were well armed and looked ready to spring into action at the say-so of the paler one.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” James said as he stepped clear of the carriage, arms and hands out to show he was unarmed.
“Darius? Darius, is that you?”
“Hello, Little Lamb.”
James opened his mouth to ask whether this man was friend or foe when pain exploded in the back of his skull and his world slowly sank into darkness. Daniella’s screams were the last sounds in his ears as consciousness melted away into a bottomless abyss of nothing.
*
“Unhand me at once,” Daniella demanded, feeling only slightly ridiculous in her boy’s clothes, minus the boots she’d never got around to putting on.
“You are in no position to be making demands, Little One.”
“I am not your little one anymore, Darius. What do you think you’re doing carrying me off like this?” Lying bent over the pommel of a man’s horse was only slightly more degrading than riding on his shoulder, and no more comfortable.
“I’m rescuing you from your kidnapper.”
“You’re kidnapping me from my kidnapper.”
“Every man has to make a living, Little One.”
“Would you cease with all the little one talk, please? It’s humiliating.”
“More humiliating than being purchased by a nobleman? Or less?”
“How did you hear about that?”
“I hear everything, Daniella, and the stories worried even me.”
“Did my father send you to collect me?” she asked hopefully, trying hard to stretch her body around to see his face. Perhaps they’d made amends and then gone separate ways to get her back?
“Your father doesn’t know I have you. Not yet. I did have an interesting visit with your brother, though.”
“Does Anthony know where I am? Is that how you found me?”
“My crew intercepted an intriguing letter of ransom but when I presented it to your brother, he didn’t seem particularly surprised or worried, more…disappointed.”
“You’re making a mistake getting involved in this, Darius.”
“I can’t see how. I’m going to sell a rich man back to his family along with his servants. Sounds like a financially rewarding situation to me.”
“He’ll kill you for this.”
“Who? Your brother? Your father? Or perhaps your titled man?”
“He is not my man. He kidnapped me and held me hostage and then dragged me halfway across the country. I was terrified for my life.” Embellishing the truth certainly couldn’t hurt her cause.
“You didn’t appear terrified when my men knocked him out.”
“I was shocked is all.”
“Being an English lady has softened you, has it?”
Daniella snorted. She was never at risk of turning into an English lady nor was there any danger of her softening. Darius’s men had caught James off guard when they’d knocked him unconscious. She didn’t like seeing him injured. By her hand or anyone
